Your Right to Know

A bill making it tougher to get an issue on the ballot by restricting when signatures could be collected passed the Senate today along party lines, 23-10.

Supporters say the bill will bring uniformity to the process of getting an issue on the general election ballot. Under current law, if a group turns in signatures, but it is determined that not enough have been verified to qualify for the ballot, the group gets another 10 days to collect signatures.

However, the law also allows the group to continue to collect signatures during the process of verifying that initial batch of petitions – a process that, over 30 issues since 1997, has varied from 16 to 58 days.

“That is not fair. That is not equal. That is not uniform,” said Sen. Bill Seitz, R-Cincinnati, the sponsor of Senate Bill 47.

The process, Seitz said, allows for potential gamesmanship at the secretary of state’s office or the county level, where they can speed up or slow down the verification process, depending on whether they support the issue.

Under his bill, a group would not be allowed to collect extra signatures until the initial batch of petitions are verified. At that point, it would get 10 days.

Seitz said he has heard from tea party groups who think this is a plot to keep the right-to-work issue from making the ballot. Others, he said, think it’s an effort to hurt future efforts to overturn legislation, such as Senate Bill 5.

“It is about none of these things. It’s about having one set of simple, easy to follow rules,” Seitz said.

A number of groups over the years have used the time while petitions are being certified to gather extra signatures needed to qualify for the ballot. Sen. Shirley Smith, D-Cleveland, said most of the bill is good, but the limit on signature gathering is “unwarranted.” She said uniformity is a buzzword these days, but it doesn’t necessarily equal fairness nor solve problems.

Sen. Nina Turner, D-Cleveland, a potential candidate for secretary of state next year, said the “so-called uniformity is nothing more than a smoke screen. Access and the ability of citizens to make their voices heard should not be aggrieved. We should make it easier, not harder.”

Secretary of State Jon Husted has said the bill is on the right track. It now goes to the House.

Among the other changes in the bill:

Raises from $10,000 to $25,000 the threshold for competitive bidding for county boards of elections.

Allows the secretary of state to enter into bulk purchasing agreements, in an effort to lower costs.

Says a person does not have to be an in-state resident to circulate a petition for a presidential election.